Hey all,
I hope this post does not come off too negative, but recently I've returned to The Wars of Light and Shadow, an epic fantasy series by Janny Wurts that I started to read in the late 90s. It is still not finished two decades later, but it looks like there is only one book left and it might be published in the next year or so, so I decided to give it a re-read, as I remember rather enjoying at least the first four books.
Well, I soon found myself disgusted, annoyed, and flabbergasted that I had made it through the first book back in 1997. Janny Wurts writes unnatural, stilted flowery prose that is painful to read. Nearly every noun must be modified with a 3-7 syllable adjective, and God forbid that a sentence, adjective, or verb should remain plain and without adornment by an adverb.
Add to this the fact that every character reacts to every action of every other character, and the reasons for each reaction are patiently explained to the reader (as if the reader is an anthropologist from Mars, unfamiliar with human psychology) in the same overly descriptive prose that the actions are.
As something of a reverse tribute, below please find a delicious chocolate mousse recipe written in her style.
Consumed by obdurate desire for forbidden chocolate, procure the following:
4 large eggs, of cups one half of sugar, one quarter cup of butter lacking of the essence of salt, one quarter cup plain water, 3 tablespoons of coffee liqueur, 4 teaspoons of chili oil, 7 ounces of exquisitely tempting bittersweet chocolate, and lastly 1 cup of cream which has been whipped by hands unfeeling to its natural status.
Spurning the humdrum use of whisk, instead expose an electrical beater, and, impelled by stark yearning, combine egg yolks, water, coffee liqueur, butter, and chili oil, and in a designated bowl inter them and thrash them until frothy. Conjointly, smelt the chocolate and commingle with egg amalgamation.
Rapaciousness not yet slaked, savage the pearly egg whites in a sundered bowl until stiff and glossed. Senses piqued to the proclivities of the recipe's requirements, tenderly fold egg whites and chocolate admixture. Oblige this to congeal in a device whose manifest purpose is thus: chilling. Do this for three hours, then consume.
I hope that gives you some idea of what reading an 800 page book by her would be like.
Cheers,
